


Comptine d'un autre été

by Ibbyliv



Series: Le Fabuleux Destin de Grantaire et Enjolras [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: But you can spot the similarities, Domestic, Homophobia, Living Together, M/M, Not really an Amélie AU, Prejudice, Social Discriminations, Third Person POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 11:40:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibbyliv/pseuds/Ibbyliv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The women of the neighborhood waited for the young bachelor to forget to buy sugar and clumsily knock on their door to ask for some, but to their utmost dismay most of the time he kept inside and very often, delicious scents danced their way out of the opened kitchen window. The neighbors noticed that he had company at nights, and often they heard more than one voices, so they waited impatiently to finally meet that lucky, pretty girl who had made her way to the eligible man’s heart. Then the grocer of the neighborhood, Monsieur Pelland, said that some other man had moved in with him. They found it hard to believe, but Monsieur Pelland was a respectable middle aged man with a round belly and all of his black hair still on his head, and soon one after the other the neighbors started spotting the man.</p><p>His name was Grantaire.<br/>*<br/>When the neighbours' lives aren't interesting enough, they observe the life of an unusual, young couple through a window with hand-painted wooden shutters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comptine d'un autre été

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StarberryCupcake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarberryCupcake/gifts), [GrantaireandHisBottle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrantaireandHisBottle/gifts).



> I'm so sorry for the horrible exaggeration in this story, I don't believe that people are like that, the story is SUPPOSED to be exaggerating so please forgive me for making everyone look horrible, it's just that I've met such people in my life and I wanted to write about them and about the way they'd made me feel. Also OF COURSE I don't mean what I say from the neighbor's POV, things that sound racist, homophobic, ableist or narrow-minded are NOT my opinions, they are straightforward criticism to some people's behaviors.
> 
> You might notice the Amelie references, they were fully intended. Also this story is set a few decades ago, I'm not exactly sure when, maybe in the early '90s? People were even less educated and accepting when it came to homosexuality then than they are now.
> 
> The title is from a piece I've been in love with since I was six years old and my favorite movie in the universe, Amelie, came out. Yann Tiersen is a wonderful composer and if you haven't yet embraced him in your life it's high time you do so <3  
> Dedicated with much love to my wonderful friends, GrantairandHisBottle and StarberryCupcake.
> 
> EDIT: fuckity fuck I just realized the typo in the article of the title I'm so sorry I posted this in a hurry fuck can I not do one job right?

The apartment of the first floor has been rent for a couple of years. No one had ever thought that someone would actually show interest for Madame Manseau's apartment, a tiny place with only two sleazy rooms, cold mosaic piles on the kitchen floor and callused wood on that of the bedroom and the little living room, a couple of windows with old, peeling shutters allowing small breaths of light inside every time that the sun actually spared them with it. Everyone was surprised when a man named Enjolras (a boy, really) showed interest for this little place and it was strange because to the neighbors he looked capable of more, in his polished black boots and his well-tailored red coat, scandalously handsome, with those blond curls and the red lips, and surely well off, coming from a good family. The women of the neighborhood waited for the young bachelor to forget to buy sugar and clumsily knock on their door to ask for some, but to their utmost dismay most of the time he kept inside and very often, delicious scents danced their way out of the opened kitchen window. The neighbors noticed that he had company at nights, and often they heard more than one voices, so they waited impatiently to finally meet that lucky, pretty girl who had made her way to the young man’s heart. Then the grocer of the neighborhood, Monsieur Pelland, said that some other man had moved in with him. They found it hard to believe, but Monsieur Pelland was a respectable middle aged man with a round belly and all of his black hair still on his head, and soon one after the other the neighbors started spotting the man.

His name was Grantaire.

Lips were pressed together in thin lines, eyebrows were raised and eyes sneaked a glimpse or two when one spotted the man walking out of the door to buy some bread from the bakery at the corner of the street, sometimes donuts and chocolate muffins as if they were only boys instead of men. People tried to smile, maybe a little cautiously, but he was rude, he didn’t always smile back. There was something odd in his manner of walking, something careless, even disrespectful. There was a hint of sarcasm in his blue eyes, surrounded by dark circles which they didn’t fully understand, and it scared them. Once again, they felt sorry for the beautiful young man gone wrong, Enjolras who could have done so much better than that. The rehearsed smiles soon grew into twitches of disapproval. They didn’t need a reason to feel uncomfortable, it just made them. These two men never interfered with the neighbors lives, but their sole presence was a subtle and recurrent annoyance, like a piece of popcorn stuck between two teeth, or a pair of socks that didn’t always stand up in place. The obligation to force a smile and say a two-second good morning to Enjolras when they met at the stairs seemed to gravely delay them from their engagements and they wished they wouldn’t meet with Grantaire at the grocery, or else they’d have the pull the effort to pretend they hadn’t seen him.

No one knew exactly what the two men did with their lives. They spotted a bunch of friends that visited several evenings. Whoever passed outside those evenings could hear laughter and swears and music and singing. They played guitars and harmonicas, and they got drunk. One night Madame Lechange called the police. She was right, she had little ones and they disturbed their sleep. A bulky man with a Mohawk, his bare arms covered in tattoos, came outside to deal with the policemen. Monsieur Rosin was out in the balcony, and spotted two more, a girl with thick painted eyelashes and a piercing, tattoos hugging her legs that disappeared into huge army boots, and another, he later told in shock that he couldn’t tell whether he was a man or a woman because his hair was long and braided and he was dressed in flowers and pants that stuck on his legs. He spotted the policemen chatting cheerfully with the youngsters, who were probably junkies. Then the police left. Nowadays the cops don’t do their job anymore. That’s why society is going straight to hell. No one imposes discipline any longer.

Rumors had it that Enjolras was an anarchist, and that drew angry whispers and hostile looks. People wished for their children to grow up in a safe environment. Then they learnt that he wasn't an anarchist but he was indeed involved in politics, and he worked as a journalist. Enjolras and Grantaire stayed inside most of the time, they didn’t meddle with the others’ affairs, they dealt with their own business. Every nosy pair of ears or eyes had to try hard to learn more about them. They learnt that Grantaire now said hello, depending on his mood (which was dark and distant most of the time) and when he did he smiled with his crooked, yellow teeth so warmly that it made people uncomfortable, they felt like they were being mocked. They also learnt that he had a drinking problem, no surprises there. People kept their kids away from the apartment of the second. Times were dangerous and one should be careful nowadays. A few days later they saw him at the window, covered in color with a brush in his hands. He was painting the old, rotten shutters aquamarine, with lilac waves and yellow flower petals. He was an artist. People got angry, it degraded the building and defiled the uniformity of the neighborhood. They tried to press charges against him but apparently Enjolras knew the law. It was the first time they saw him angry.

People talked because they had nothing else to do. This was better than telly, more real and near them, something to occupy themselves with. Monsieur Pelland’s grocery was the meeting center and he was the conductor of the feast. He snorted and spat near the artichokes about people’s abnormalities. Then he straightened his rotted thin tie and shook his head gravely. He was an honorable man, and he only pitied them for their sickness. Only God would eventually judge them for their sins. The whispers stopped when Grantaire came in that huge, torn leather jacket, to ask for two asparagus and an onion. With a smile that reeked of alcohol, he’d tell Madame Lechange he was making vegetable soup and he’d give her his secret. She’d cross her arms in front of her chest defensively but later that night she’d try it in the safety of her own kitchen, and it would be the first time Clara and Lucas ate their soup.

Monsieur Pelland had a boy who helped him, Séba, a boy that really was a Nigerian man of thirty years old but tended to think differently than other people. One day Grantaire arrived at the grocery with unwashed hair, paint stained fingers and a lingering smell of smoke. They hadn’t yet stopped talking about him and his drinking, so Monsieur Pelland who spotted him rushed to change the subject to Séba, cursing him and mocking him because he had found him speaking to his plants. Before anyone could realize what was happening, Grantaire had leaned over the counter and grabbed Monsieur Pelland by the collar, the grocer’s huge stomach pressed between them. He hissed a threat that nobody heard and threw him back, shaking like a leaf. Grantaire was dangerous. The following week, Grantaire started teaching Séba how to paint.

Enjolras and Grantaire brought home a cat, a small, tiny kitten they found trembling in the rain. Monsieur Balmy protested because he was allergic, but Madame Manseau said that pets were allowed in her apartment and the cat wouldn’t get anywhere near him. It was a grey, beautiful cat yet savage and independent. When she grew up a little, she could be seen licking her legs on her favorite spot at the window, behind the foggy, wet window pane when it rained, or lying lazily and enjoying the sun in the summer. Grantaire could be seen as well behind the window pane, burying his face in her fur and laughing mutedly, holding her tightly in his arms and placing kisses all over her head. Enjolras was occasionally visible, when he walked by the window with notes in his hands and a pen hanging between his teeth, absent-mindedly scratching behind her ears as he checked them. Their figures could be spotted in foggy, rainy days, shadows walking around with mugs of hot coffee in their hands. In the winter they’d cook and invite Madame Thilbodeaux in their apartment. Madame Thilbodeaux had been a dancer in her youth, some said. Others said a prostitute but one can never really know. She had a son that left to move to America and hardly ever visited. She was an old lady in her eighties, distant and silent, her tired eyes wet and blank, her yellowish skin baggy and wrinkled. Some said she was crazy. They respected her, but no one really paid attention to her nonsensical stories.

Every weekend a lady in her fifties visited, a tired, kind face and long greying black curls tied on the base of her neck, old skirts and faded cardigans a size too big. They once saw Grantaire throwing his arms around her and her face lit up as they disappeared behind the door of the apartment. She sat on the table and talked vividly with Enjolras while playing with the cat. Somehow it seemed strange that Grantaire had a mother, a mother who thought of him and visited. It seemed even stranger that Enjolras’ parents never did.

In Christmas ten people shoved a Christmas tree up the narrow staircase, ignoring the protests. The building smelt of pine and scents of chocolate and baked goods somehow managed to escape the shut windows and meddle with the swirling snowflakes. A sweet girl with blond hair knocked the doors of the other apartments to give the neighbors chocolate cookies that children were eventually never allowed to eat. On Christmas Eve music could be heard once again, but this time slow, jazz music. The light coming from the candles and the bulbs of the Christmas tree was dim and nobody could easily see them waltzing around the living room, their heads resting on each other’s shoulder. On New Year’s Eve they left the apartment to go somewhere else, dressed in excellent suits and coats over them, holding gloved hands and wearing festive woolen berets. Just in the end of the pavement they stopped and kissed sloppily, sneakily like children, red noses bumping and red cheeks dimpling from their giggles. Only Monsieur Balmy’s teenage daughter, Emma saw them, and was left wondering and oddly moved.

One day they fought, and they fought badly. People heard shouting and swearing and glasses that broke. The cat was heard meowing angrily. Grantaire burst out of the door and slammed it behind him. Enjolras didn’t shout after him, just bent over the window and watched him walk away, his expression hurt and silent.

It was only normal. People shook their heads gravely. It was a pity but it was normal. Such relationship didn’t have duration. Madame Rosin always said that Enjolras could have done better. Grantaire was a drunken artist, and that time he had threatened Monsieur Pelland. Enjolras was seen speaking to the cat as he moved around in the kitchen. People were sorry, people were sympathetic. And the next morning, Grantaire returned. He looked horrible and Enjolras met him at the door and wrapped his arms around him protectively, his face tightened with fierce, pained adoration. Grantaire apologized and Enjolras apologized and the neighborhoods looked away as they embraced each other in the privacy of their apartment.

In the spring the window would fill with bright pink bougainvillea that smelt beautifully. The man who looked also like a woman could be seen in the apartment, moving around and preparing the table for their band of friends. Laughter was heard again that day, long after Grantaire had left. Laughter and songs. In the evening, people danced in the dim light. The neighborhood smelt of oranges. They went out more when April came, they pulled two bikes from the basement where the people of the building kept things and cycled as far as the Seine and the Ponts, considering how breathless and flushed they came back after hours, with books and pencils and bags of croissants in the baskets of the bikes.

In the summer, when the sun burnt the pavement and the humidity caused people to sigh, covered in sweat, a friend, some of their cult, came over to craft fans with Grantaire. The man with the freckles all over his face was wearing an old pair of dungarees and Grantaire was shirtless on a step of the pavement, near the orange trees, in nothing but a pair of shorts. Women of the neighborhood resisted the urge to join them, but their children didn’t. Boys and girls sneaked away from their mothers and all of them sat in the sunlight by the stairs. Grantaire and the workingman taught them not only how to make fans, but also how to make birds and boats from paper, garlands of dancing men and women and ornaments for the window. Most of the children didn’t have dessert that evening.

Some hot afternoons of July they could see the cat jumping off the open window and inside the apartment to rub against Enjolras or Grantaire’s bare calves. The window was full of flowers and, in the tiny apartment, two sweaty figures met upon the damp sheets of a bed, kissing with passion slowly, and coupling chastely in the middle of a sinful, sterilized world. 


End file.
